Seeking Testers for Premium Pak 12
Since the release of QLPP11, the Quake Live development team has been hard at work at preparing your next content update. Due to the substantial number of changes made in the update, we are seeking volunteers to test the release candidate of the upcoming Quake Live Premium Pak 12.

Next week we will begin adding new testers to our Focus team. If you are interested in volunteering, please read the below requirements and expectations before replying.

Requirements for Applying:
Premium or Pro Subscriber
Account created before November 30, 2010
No account suspensions on record

What you should expect:
Early access to new code and content.
Daily play tests Monday - Friday (on TX, NY, UK, and NLD servers)
Developer play tests from 4pm - 5pm central time on TX or NY servers.
Tester initiated play tests organized on IRC, at various times and locations.
Communication and feedback given through IRC and Focus Forums

What we expect!
Complete confidentiality
A good attitude and civility with testers and developers.
Regular participation in our scheduled play tests.
Initiative to play matches on focus, outside of the scheduled play test times.
Ability to take simple notes to document issues or oddities as they are found.
Weekly, if not daily, feedback to communicate issues found during play tests.
Ability to separate bug reports from suggestions, and provide both types of feedback in the appropriate locations.

from what we already know those will be wcp14, one ra3 map (both which are f2p in q3) and the second tdm map made by yellack which he gave id for free (they didn't add it in more than a year for whatever reason).

That post is from March 02, 2012. Looks like they're getting a head start on this year's quakecon update. It's nice that it only took them a couple years or so to do something like have an actual schedule for testers.

I just don't understand why it's so hard for id to execute this simple routine:
1. Identify the biggest current problems of QL
2. Do something towards solving those problems
Yet, they continue to roll out those meaningless premium packs, when there is ~zero premium activity. What this pack is supposed to solve? What goal do they want to achieve?

they dont plan on achieiving anything, if they did then they would actually be working towards improving the game. QL is already a confirmed failure. right now, theyre just milking as much money out of you cows as they can until this game finally sinks. and it will sink.

theres always a few newbs who are going to buy into the scam that QL is, along with the diehard fanboys who coerce them into doing so. a neverending cycle really. we know that they arent losing money from keeping QL running, which is why they havent shut it down yet. how much exactly theyre making, we'll never know.

1.- You can still apply for a tester position for this patch. Follow Jamerio's steps!.

2.- Thread called Enable the edge. "SPONGE, GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS AND GIVE PRO SUBSCRIBERS ACCESS TO WINTERS EDGE. Worst ****ing dev team ever."

Sponge 3/15/12: "Since someone else already beat me to the ban there, if anyone else is wondering, we don't want to release The Edge in it's current state as it's a brush for brush port of the Q2 version, and frankly looks completely unacceptable by Q3/QL standards without the XMas stuff to hide some of the lack of detail. There's also some gameplay issues when played without rampjumping enabled.
With that said, it's hardly my decision, or even Sync's to make the final call on releasing it, either way"
"Only around <10% of total players use picmip 3 or above last time I checked. The Edge is our map so there are no rights issues."

we don't want to release The Edge in it's current state as it's a brush for brush port of the Q2 version, and frankly looks completely unacceptable by Q3/QL standards without the XMas stuff to hide some of the lack of detail

What a load of the nonsense. Q3/QL standards are that of a 12 year old game - everything looks shit. Q2DM1 has been one of the most popular maps whenever it's been available and that's saying something considering how few people play the game.

also seems like people miss plussed sonic instead of me, when I took the biggest risk possible: losing a one year premium QL account (they are so bad someone gave it to me since he was that much disappointed with what he bought).

any account that is not from november 2010 or earlier is suspect. and more then likely a dishonorable player or already a BANNED ALT.

EVEN anyone that was still playing q3 at least 4 years ago......cause even in 4 years you'd get super rusty coming into ql.......is not just joining quakelive now. maybve 1 out of 10 new accounts is truly new to ql.....but most are fake alts skill 80+ or alt team stacking super quitters, that have as many quits as half their losses. And the new account that was a really a true ql newb.....bringing his team down in t3......... prolly won't stay more then a couple weeks. Think otherwise if your that naive....

most of the players playing were here in open beta and lost their accounts. hahaha crazy ass community.

any account that is not from november 2010 or earlier is suspect. and more then likely a dishonorable player or already a BANNED ALT.

new accounts are only "suspect" because there's no proper anticheat to filter them out and distinguish who's legit and who isn't. and no, stats dont mean shit in that regard as there are tons of walling fucks with normal looking stats.

any account that is not from november 2010 or earlier is suspect. and more then likely a dishonorable player or already a BANNED ALT.

new accounts are only "suspect" because there's no proper anticheat to filter them out and distinguish who's legit and who isn't. and no, stats dont mean shit in that regard when there are tons of walling fucks with normal looking stats around.

and what about players who don't bot but just slum tiers by faking their skill matching on alts while team stacking and talking shit to newbs till they ragequit the game? You think thats perfectly legitmate? Do you think they have an honest profile?

its funny how the only terms that came from quake...are ragequit....own.....just derogatory real scumbag taunts.

meanwhile cs we got terms like stacked, autobalance,

although in cs it changed from bot to hacker.....i prefer bot.

I don't know what world you come from. But its only the fantasy in quake....because in the real world you can't cheat by hacking...but there is plenty other ways.....which ALSO exist in quake dude.

its not. it'll stop people using hacks (aimbots,autofires,wallhacks,etc)

and what about players who don't bot but just slum tiers by faking their skill matching on alts while team stacking and talking shit to newbs till they ragequit the game? You think thats perfectly legitmate? Do you think they have an honest profile?

yeah, why wouldnt that be considered legit play? that person may be an asshole, but hes still a fair player nonetheless. he's not doing anything the next person wouldnt be able to do if he actually tried to learn how to get good at the game instead of crying about it.

I don't know what world you come from. But its only the fantasy in quake....because in the real world you can't cheat by hacking...but there is plenty other ways.....which ALSO exist in quake dude.

so i guess if someone steals the girl you had a crush on because theyve worked hard at their game and becoming a smoother talker than you, you consider that cheating? lol, mine as well just give up on life then if its that easy for you to cry when things dont go your way.

"yeah, why wouldnt that be considered legit play? that person may be an asshole, but hes still a fair player nonetheless. he's not doing anything the next person wouldnt be able to do if he actually tried to learn how to get good at the game instead of crying about it."

Only in quake can you get away with such a statement. That faking your skill matching is legit and fair play. hahahah only in quake man.

I don't know what world you come from. But its only the fantasy in quake....because in the real world you can't cheat by hacking...but there is plenty other ways.....which ALSO exist in quake dude.

"so i guess if someone steals the girl you had a crush on because theyve worked hard at their game and becoming a smoother talker than you, you consider that cheating? lol, mine as well just give up on life then if its that easy for you to cry when things dont go your way. "

smooth talking is part of the game. Cheating would be using chloroform or a rufie...lol

"slumming" is part of the game too, and has been since the beginning of multiplayer fps. players of all skill levels have been doing it for years. why cry about it instead of improve your own skills? anyways, you just contradicted yourself, yet again. if you werent such a failnewb maybe you could be good at quake and could slum lesser players too.

no, nothing was broken in other previous quake games because they didnt deal with a half-assed tier system that doesnt work like it should. good idea, fail execution, shouldve never been implemented. this broken system in QL, along with the lack of anticheat, just gives the noobs something more to whine about.

but skillrating system was made possible because of server hosting by id. in q3, im sure u would add servers to favorite, and play with the same people most of the time. but now, there are no favorite servers, and its based mostly on truly pub servers.

and u cant really say skill rating serves no function. their system is on the verge of uselss, but it still effective on some level. if their system was improved some for CA, by simply allowing people to go beyond 100, id say its would actually be effective.

but hey, dont like it: go play unranked server, they excist for every gametype i believe

if you want a chance for your voice to be heard, you need to invest in their project beforehand. and then maybe theyll actually listen to you.

like i said before, ID doesnt give a fuck about anyone other than their subscribers, and they take good care of them which is why so many blatant prem/pro cheaters & rule violators are allowed to run rampant without them giving a shit. just shows how desperate they are for your buck.

We asked in the subscriber forum because we wanted a large section of our testers to be subscribers (for a particular reason).

Beyond that I have done my own recruiting to find some testers, especially those who are 'somewhat pros'. These testers do not HAVE to be subscribers.

Gillz is well aware that I have been asking around for testers, and asked for them to pm me in irc (the place I had been advertising). Gillz never pm'd me, he just simply tried to access focus and found that he was no longer a testers -- which is true for everyone who had been in focus but slipped into inactivity. Anyone who previously had focus access but hadn't assisted in testing in 2012 was removed.

I have been asking around for testers, and asked for them to pm me in irc (the place I had been advertising).

i bet if you guys made it so that more people were aware of the situation, youd get a bigger response. im sure youve heard this a bunch of times now, but im just going to reiterate anyways: the lack of communication between the community and the development of this game is pathetic and needs to be improved in so many ways.

another thing, i dont get why something like this is only being advertised on IRC instead of other avenues anyways when a good chunk of the playerbase doesnt even use IRC. eh w/e

We're looking for a small group of testers. If we advertised the need for testing more publicly, the response would be way more than desired. We'd both have to turn away a lot more people, as well as review more applicants.

We have enough testers atm. I'm only taking additional names right now because I would like a few more who can focus on one particular change.

what i dont get is why we're still testing shit if we've been out of beta for over a year now. this game was supposed to be "finished" a long time ago. there shouldnt even be a need for a focus group at this point. what else really needs to be tested that cant be tested on a larger-scale by the rest of the playerbase?

allowing the community to feel involved with the development of the game or atleast know what direction its going in is key to keeping it alive, which is why QL is at a steady decline. giving us a "premium pak" update every few months isnt going to cut it. please try harder to keep the rest of us "little people" more informed on whats going on behind the scenes and whether or not QL has a future or not.

also, you guys should be paying others to test/fix your game, not the other way around. using premium/pro subscription as a basis to judge whether or not someone is worthy of being in focus is a lousy way to get help. i can understand the other requirements though.

then they should've never left beta phase. this game is obviously still broken if all of these bugs are still being fixed. all of these issues should have been worked out before QL jumped out of beta and launched their get-rich-quick annual subscription model. honestly, the management has been terrible since the beginning.

Wouldn't that be rather stupid if there is already enough people willing to do it for free?

no since its pretty clear that you get what you pay for. im willing to bet that most of these "Testers" that they have now are far from being actual qualified game developers, and are just part of the focus group because of how much they can kiss ass. i already know of a few who are in the focus group that got in there because of how much ass they kissed. they even told me that they never test, and never did shit since they got in. its nothing more than a pointless elitest club which is why i dont get why the group is necessary anyways since most likely none of these guys are more qualified than anyone else whos been playing quake for the past few years.

if they paid a real dev team with actual game development experience to test and fix major issues that have been brought up for the past 3 years, maybe this game wouldn't have been such a crapfest

Like the original post says, it's a content update. Nothing wrong with bug fixes either. Remember that Starcraft 1: BW was still getting bug fixes just few years ago and that game wasn't a complete failure, was it?

And recruiting voluntary testers is a common habit in multiplayer games (WoW comes to mind).

there's nothing wrong with fixing bugs but dont you find it a little odd that its still happening during every update? all of the game's core issues and bugs should have been fixed and sorted out during the beta period especially considering this game is nothing more than a watered down version of q3. in all reality the core of this game was fixed for ID years ago, all they had to do was port it to the browser & market it properly for it to be a success. they had everything handed to them and still failed lol.

btw i thought it was adorable how u compared the games from different genres to quake lulzz.

I so wish you would have found a better way to handle the whole subscription business :(
the amount of wasted potential makes me as a die hard quake fan who'd be more than willing to pay pretty much any amount of money if the business model made any sense truly sad. I do have other problems in life but still almost unbearable to see when it is so obvious..

I made a whine post cause i was banned for no reason. Btw. if its not matter of an opinion then you are trying to state the obvious. You know what kind of people are stating the obvious ONLINE? You cant google that shit loser. Bye.

It's hard not to be an asshole about this ,to be fair. I am guessing that anti-cheat and netcode improvement will not be included in this ,which pretty much makes it a waste of time and resources.
Adding more subscription options and paypal payments means nothing without anti-cheat and netcode fixes.
Hopefully i'm wrong.

Being in focus was just a power trip for most. When a wave of us were added a couple of years ago, the existing focus testers literally stated in the channel "if these guys are not removed then I quit focus". Any change or addition to the game was blindly cheered and ANY objective opinion was jumped on so aggressively with threats as above and abuse, that I decided the little circle jerk they had going on there was not worth my time.

I think the game as it stands is a great example of how picking the people that just suck up to you and only praise what you do, has a detrimental effect on how the game develops.

HOWEVER after saying all that, one thing I realised is that focus is not about ideas or game development, it is simply about testing for bugs. This is both good and bad.

I would really like some kind of open discussion on how the game should be developed further, feature and gameplay wise. I feel Quake is not as popular as it could be, partly down so some fundamental gameplay elements and lack of certain features.

Quake needs to be overhauled from the ground up in terms of gameplay with the focus taken from some boring areas of gameplay and developed in a way much better for the new player to get involved with. With the closed minds of this ancient community though I know it just won't happen, and we are going to slowly dwindle down to nothing.

P.S. Personally I think everybody with a PRO account should get early testing benefits, for test game modes and maps. That would actually add another bit of value to buying a pro account.

The game will not be developed further as it's maintained by 2 dudes doing it during their lunch break.

We're talking about quake ( impliying quake 3 ), the community should not be listened to anyway. You'd get much better results asking the qw/q2 players who've been able to handle and manage their ( allegedly dead ) stuff much better than the bunch bitter 12yo haunting this place.

I think elements can be developed and tested now in Quake Live, ready for a future title. People might think that nobody is interested in the Quake style game, but that is because we have not tried to develop the modes for the last 15 years into something people actually do want to play.

New modes should be developed and tested in Quake Live, and when perfected can be brought out with a new Quake, with sparkling graphics and a modern interface. I am pretty sure there is still a lot of people out there that would play Quake if it was done correctly.

I think the recent Kickstarter events around Wasteland 2 play into Dis' point. The interest in "arcane" game types still does exist, no matter what the publishers of braindead, press x to win games would like you to think. The existing playerbase for Wasteland is viable for a commercial success, I think the same holds true for Quake style fps games. Though it isnt a multibillion dollar deal Zenimax would like it to be.

Quake isnt more popular cause of their advertising methods. Live streams and LAN event such as Dreamhack did more to promote this game than ID itself.
I helped many new players to get start with quake (even this week there were 2). Most of them heard about quake from their friend who also plays or saw it on stream.
I know a lot of people that play COD4 competitive for example and most of them never even heard of quake in general. Imagine the guys that play vanilla cod etc...
ID is advertising quake on facebook where farmville is the most popular game while they lack to understand where their potential customers truly are.
Thats the only reason this game isnt more popular. Cheers.

Well, this is not about money for me: I just want to start QL, quickly check the game browser, join a server with someone already waiting, play a duel, and if I've found an opponent of my level to have fun playing with I want to /cv timelimit 15 to have some old-fashioned matches -- which were way better than tl 10 imho. Hard to believe that a basic setting like match duration isn't there for everyone (or at the very least on prem servers).

i dont believe its about money for anyone, but rather the lack of value you're getting for your money. im sure everyone can afford a premium account, but that doesnt mean that they feel its worth it to them.

Exactly. And also Pro isn't expensive. But stuff like match duration has to be votable on a running server.
We played some FT the other day with a lot of changes (because default settings just suck), but some settings were still bad. As I understood it even the host couldn't fix that anymore. Same thing as with the timelimit ...

Is that correct? Server has to be restarted even for small changes? If that is true, options like to set match duration in Start-a-Match is not enough. But get this message to id ...

also, if atleast a few of these new gametypes they plan on adding arent going to be available to play on public servers then theyre going to be just as dead as freezetag. lets hope they've learned from their mistakes, but i doubt it.

its been called doubler since TA so why are they wasting their time renaming established game items when they could be working on other things in the game. all this will do is cause unnecessary confusion.

Domination mode sounds like bf3's conquest mode and similar to ca.. sounds interesting. sounds like it would be especially awsome with a ridiculous huge amount of of players on one big map. I say make people update their pcs for it :)

and what is this clan arena premium scoreboard i never heard of this? Is that seperate clan arena stats and do they show to everyone on players profile pages?

Geez, can't wait to see how bad they butchered CTFS. Not that it'll get played much if it's a pro only feature, hope they learned their lesson with Freezetag. And a premium CA scoreboard? Really? I'm against prem only scoreboards, because the standard ones for most (if not all) gametypes are as useless as fake tits on a 90 yr old woman. What's next, prem only +acc that would actually be useful and show hits/shots per weapon?

for the love of god, make freezetag and the new gamemodes free already.. I'd really like somebody like the qlranks team to do some statistics on how many freeze tag matches actually get played .. that number should speak for itself when it comes to how much sense it makes to introduce more premium-only gametypes.

how's that better? lol... if its free, it doesnt necessarily mean its guaranteed to have an active scene, but atleast everyone gets a chance to play it and try it out. freezetag never even had a chance to get popular in QL. it couldve really had a strong competitive scene like uft in q3 if they wouldve done it right. why limit a gametype to only a fraction of the playerbase? itll never be played competitively if thats done since the majority of the players are unable to practice on it regularly.

btw not even 100 people play freeze tag lol that shits completely dead i dont even know why they keep the servers running.

I don't know how much FT is played in Europe but I think that there are around 40-50 players (instaFT included) in North America. Europe being typically more active I wouldn't say that 100 players is out of question.

lol thats dead. only time freezetag is really active is during devpicks when they make it free. i wouldnt be surprised if alot of new players didnt know that freezetag existed either since no one promotes it much.

ok, but that doesnt change the fact that its still dead in comparison to the three active mods (duel ca and ctf) but deny it all you want if it makes u feel better.

also, CTF and CA is pretty much dead in NA as well. in CTF its nothing but CTF4 on all the pub servers so your basically forced to play with the same bunch of retard fucks in www.quakepickups.com until you get bored, and in CA its nothing but the same dudes hacking it up day to day which ID does nothing about.

i don't "realize" it, I "guess" it, as do you. and that "playerbase" are not their customers, they are simply potential customers getting something for free. it's a privilege, not a right. 'id' can artificially double the pings of all free accounts tomorrow, and no one will have any right to complain. if any of those people are complaining about the free service they're getting, they should be banned.

I feel this has been discussed to death really but I just think it would have made a lot more sense to build and sustain a healthy player base first, give them decent matchmaking and game modes that are enjoyable in public play (=> freezetag, red rover..) and then charge for extra features rather than core game content. the apparent financial success of multiplayer titles that go for a similiar concept (tf2, mobas) supports this thesis.
public play on premium modes and maps is practically dead and has been that way for quite a while. people are frustrated because they can't enjoy most of the content they payed for..
personally I feel a lot better about investing in something that I feel is run in my interest, making sure the product gets a chance to live up to its full potential and I don't think I'm the only one who feels that way either.
the arguments are known really and if id see things differently than I would at least liked to have heard a few words on those matters these past 3 years.

i payed for pro for my own selfish reasons, as it is totally worth it. and so i am part of the healthy player base, playing pickups with other premium/pro players who can join and play these maps. if someone can't throw in 20 bucks, they are not part of any "healthy" player base and can frankly go to hell.

if the pro/premium scene is so healthy (which it isnt, atleast in NA anyways), then making it pay to play will surely solve all the problems right? yeah, QL would definitely be more active by cutting the playerbase down even further lol. also, theyd get a hell of alot more people subscribing if they expanded their payment options as well. annual payments are a huge turnoff for alot of players i know who were looking to subscribe. this has been requested since beta now, and they still havent addressed it.

it's not "so" healthy, it is simply more healthy than a bunch of freeloaders whining. i don't see what pay-to-play or payment options have to do with that, since if that's why you cant shill out 20 bucks, you're not 'healthy' one way or another (don't have a visa card? gtfo, 12 year olds).

this isn't about the money at all, if I wasn't going abroad soon I'd still have a pro subscription as well, heck if I felt things were done right I'd even pay without playing - it's just that the way things worked out and the way subscriptions are handled means it's simply not worth subscribing for many potential customers or at least they are made feel it is not worth it. and those who still do subscribe do so with a cringe rather than a smile on their faces. I think that, especially from a business perspective, id should have adapted to that reality long ago rather than expecting reality to adapt to their subpar business practice eventually.

-focus on community building/sustaining features: (mainly ladders for both duel and team modes, ability to filter by regions and decent, stricter matchmaking - qlranks showed it can be done. also featuring esport events more prominently, have newbie friendly gamemodes available, better clan support)
-not splitting the community by seperating subscribers from nonsubscribers
-regular communication with the community
-paypal support
-examples of possible paid features: server spawning, cosmetic changes (scoreboards, weapon/player skins, announcer comments,server browser..), statistic and demo tools, freedom from ads, early access to new content maybe. basically giving both new/casual and veteran players an incentive to pay.

There's no way in hell this wouldn't have turned out better both from a business and player perspective and it wouldn't even have required a lot more effort, just some more sense for how these things work nowadays and some efficiency.

that's a well thought out list of things that is unsubstantiated and basically just your preferences and desires. yes, no way in hell all these features wouldn't have made things better. on the other hand, there is no proof that any of them would have made things better for most people. GGL died pretty easily. QuakeLive is a game, it's not a ladder, it doesn't need to be responsible for ladders, or the competitive scene. there is no basis for having them manage a giant ladder. yes, it works out for blizzard, but they are an entirely different company with a much older system and circumstances. at the end of the day, it is just a game, and just the money. the game, as is, is far worth it to me, and I don't care about or need anything in your list at. if you don't want to pay for the game without those things, you don't care about the game or think it's worth it.

let me repeat that it's not about the money or whether the subscriptions are worth their price to the 500 people that frequent this site - it's about wasted potential that affects everyone's enjoyment of the game itself and its other aspects - I for one sure would have liked to go to cebit to see the IEM world finals in quake just like I did the past two years but guess what, ql got dropped because it didn't live up to people's expectations and I like many others think that a major reason for that is that id made some blatantly wrong decisions.
and if you don't care about wasted potential I could say you don't care enough about the game either ;)
I don't quite get why you seem to be fine with the way things are when it could have been so much better and that is without id having to take huge risks; if they did it more along the lines of what I (and many other knowledgable people before me obviously) proposed people would still be happy to pay for server spawning and many of the premium features we get now, except they wouldn't be frustrated by having noone to play the modes they paid for with.
anyways, this has all been said a thousand times over and we can't turn back time - I'm not trying to convince you it's not worth paying at all, I'm just trying to tell you there is reason to be disappointed about the way things were handled and it is not only the fault of some cheapskates who didn't want to pay for subscriptions that it is that way either.
over and out, not worth arguing over, just don't try to tell me I don't care about the game ;)

wasted potential is not a 'fault', it always happens. many things could have gone diffrently, the economy could have not tanked, the in-game advertising company on which id Software banked could not have folded. these changes could have depleted resources so much they would have shut down the project by now entirely. you don't actually know. my point is that from this point on, it is the subscriptions that will make or break the game, not free content for everyone. you are also WAY overstating high-level competitive aspect of the game. in my opinion, it is the marketing and publicizing the game and being able to support the server onslaught during the release where id have faltered. ladders, gtv, and all the crap people are clamoring for on this website is worth nothing without appeal to the larger audience. and that same audience are those who are not cheapskates either, so they should advertise the release of the premium packs in non-quake media.

It's not like they need premium maps and/or gametypes to get subscribers in the first place. As silly as it can sound, I've noticed that the main reason why people are going premium is simply to avoid the pre-game ads. A lot of folks are also subscribing just because they 'support the game', no matter what. It's a non-issue, really.

And i'm pretty sure they're making more money with 10 000 standard players watching commercials than with 100 subscribers (it's just ~300$ per month..)

I agree in general about what you said in the whole thread, but about this you might be wrong. Right now people are not interested in buying premium because nobody is actually playing FT, but if id would allow non-subscribers to play FT as well, it could attract those 10k players, and i'm pretty sure that 1% of them would be annoyed by waiting before joining the server enough that they would pay for premium subscription. win-win?

only id Software can know, since they have the data, but no, I don't think server hosting has ever been a big business, I don't think it's worth developing FT for that 1%. what's been proven to work is items for money, but I think that's uncompetitive, and still, freemium might not work with quake considering no one wants to pay a measly $20 for the entire year!

You forget that with those 10k new players comes a great cost increase. More servers and bandwidth needed. I don't think the 1% would be enough to sustain the system. After all, the current subscribers don't pay enough for the current freeloaders so why would it change?

but not seperated CA stats on the profile for premium members? If they separated stats for each gametype....more people would play. and their would actually be less alts too. i won't even make a second account, which is allowed, to duel with.

Since it would affect my ca stats i just don't duel at all. And this doesn't mean stats are bad. Because without stats... i just wouldn't play quakelive at all hahaha.

but lets face it...this is a competitive game....and most people only want to play maps and game modes they are already competitive on.

but I think separating stats for premium members would give them some encouragement to accumulate some just for the fun of it. I would love to just compare myself to myself in all the diff game types and watch them evolve.

id pay in a heartbeat if it was actually worth paying for. as a premium subscriber, you dont get much value over standard players which makes it a completely worthless subscription option. and since this game's routing has gone to shit, the only thing that made pro valuable (ability to spawn servers in any location) is now worthless as well.

ikr. the gametypes sound like theyre suited mainly for newbs & casual play so idk why theyre making it for pro subs only when most of the newbs are playing in public servers. duel is the only gametype that should be pro only. w/e

I think this is great for testing new content and finding bugs before releasing. This is the only way to find issues before release.

I really want to highlight what some others already have mentioned. I've been a paying costumer (pro) since it was available for QL and I have no problems with supporting QL / id software, based on how much I enjoyed all the quakes in the past. I've also bought all games made by ID, even years after first getting them to support my favorite games of all time.

But making new game modes - freeztag, domination, attack and defend (etc) and also new maps and then release these for premium/pro players only? This is the biggest problem that QL community is having at this moment. I have not seen 50% of the 'new' CA maps in a REAL public game as so few play these casual modes in premium servers. I've never been able to join a freetag server? How can this be sustainable?

You should not divide the already small community with game modes and maps. You should make costumers pay for other things like gtv, creating servers, creating/managing clans, premium scoreboards etc. Basically anything but game modes and maps, that forces the players to play on different servers which never get populated anyway, as most of these are casual modes. There must be some statistics that proves my point and there is no reason to unite the community by letting everyone eligible to join all servers and then when people actually have fun they will eventually subscribe as well.

I could go on forever, but this is a major problem in my eyes if I want to subscribe another year.

huh? are you saying they're running a scam? as far as I know, you can get a refund if you're not happy for the features you payed for. if you're not seeing the value in the game, don't pay for it? id software are not guaranteeing you any number of players. this is a made up issue of baseless self-entitlement.

don't be ridiculous. they don't FORCE you to pay for anything. also, despite what the TOS says, I was clearly told I could cancel my subscription, and I have multiple friends who did. obviously after a certain time has passed and you have used the service, it's totally unfair for you to claim the money back. that would you be you scamming them.

right, they just make it so more than half of the core content is locked out of the game unless you pay for a full year up front. good deal.

also, despite what the TOS says, I was clearly told I could cancel my subscription, and I have multiple friends who did. obviously after a certain time has passed and you have used the service, it's totally unfair for you to claim the money back.

never heard anything about a money back guarantee and nowhere on the QL website does it mention it being included when you subscribe to their services (otherwise i wouldve atleast tried it for a few days), so if thats actually the case and you're not making it up, then thats simply bad marketing on their part.

right, they just make it so more than half of the core content is locked out of the game unless you pay for a full year up front. good deal.

right, except, that's just like, your opinion, man. no one is waterboarding you to take the deal.

never heard anything about a money back guarantee

well of course, it's not guaranteed. it would be like introducing a free trial program, allowing people to indefinitely re-create the trial. the point is that it would be stupid to have that to begin with, yet they allowed some leeway. the only bad marketing in this case is them being too fucking nice. i guess they should really stop that, because of people like you.

right, except, that's just like, your opinion, man. no one is waterboarding you to take the deal.

it still doesnt change the FACT that what theyre doing is shady. i also liked how they market it as a per month bill and then throw in an extra tiny text underneath saying "Billed Anually" to scam people even more rofl. what ajoke.

well of course, it's not guaranteed.

lol so like i said youre most likely going to be jewed out of your money at their discretion, as most people have. awesome tos!

it would be like introducing a free trial program, allowing people to indefinitely re-create the trial. the point is that it would be stupid to have that to begin with, yet they allowed some leeway.

lol what leeway? and its not a stupid business practice at all. most trusty companies that arent running shady services have no problems offering a sensible refund policy or other payment options.

you're just throwing negative adjectives around with no basis in such a manner i'm begging to suspect you're trolling.

it still doesnt change the FACT that what theyre doing is shady.

except its not A FACT that they are doing anything SHADY. they are not doing ANYTHING SHADY. they just want twenty bucks from you, for the entire year, and they they're not splitting it up in 2 dollars a month, because that's fucking ridiculous.

i also liked how they market it as a per month bill and then throw in an extra tiny text underneath saying "Billed Anually" to scam people even more rofl. what ajoke.

HAHA Yeah!!! What a joke! It's 20 dollars for a whole year! What a scam!!!! LMAO!!!!

lol so like i said youre most likely going to be jewed out of your money at their discretion, as most people have. awesome tos!

Yeah! What a JEWEY SCAMSHIT TOS, isn't it?? Not letting you play for arbitrary amount of time for free? What kind of fucking scam is that??? Asking for money for service and then not giving you back the money after you used the service? Fucking jewmongers!!!!

most trusty companies that arent running shady services have no problems offering a sensible refund policy or other payment options.

Most companies do not charge such little sums of money for a whole year of service that it would be cost-deficient to run a visa or paypal transaction once a month. Most companies don't even have to deal with such shitty clientele as quakers who practically expect to get payed and a complimentary blowjob on top getting a fucking free game.

you're just throwing negative adjectives around with no basis in such a manner i'm begging to suspect you're trolling.

ahah now im trolling? lol i know you're probably feeling a little stupid now about wasting your money on something so valueless, but really, there's no need to be so stubborn. just accept your foolish mistake and move on. recognize the obvious scamshow that theyre running for what it is. no need to make excuses for what's obvious and right in front of you. live and learn.

people who disagree with me are either too inexperienced, or simply too ashamed to face the facts that they got scammed out of their money and would rather continue living in denial and praising anything that ID does (like u).

oh and lol @ u trying to convince yourself that this game is actually worth paying for by making a completely irrelevant statement.

i dont troll, but if it makes you feel like you've won then go ahead and ban me like they did at QL forums for speaking the truth, its not like what im saying is news anyways. everyone knows whats real and what isnt. i dont need to try and convince anybody of anything when the problems are out in the open for everyone to see.

u cant deny the truth forever. eventually everyone will realize, if they havent already, how shit QL is as a direct result of ID's poor management and decision-making. such is the inevitable end, the inevitable truth. ggz

yes, I have. I've been playing since wolf3D. but hey, I got an easy solution for you. you and other shit-talkers think QL is shit. so, why don't you people fuck off to some other game, and I'm going to continue to enjoy this game. that way we we all enjoy things we like, and don't tell each other what to like. how do you like that plan? the only reason you wouldn't is because you do in fact like bothering people. doesn't that make you a troll? do you even know any games you like more?

Q1-Q3 are all better than QL. but anyways i stopped playing quake a while ago after i realized the series was at a dead end since the developers dont care for it anymore. so now ive moved on to bigger and better things, i suggest you all do the same instead of wasting your lives away.

i just play my wii ps3 and xbox360 games now since im done with pc gaming until a decent fast FPS game comes out for it which might be another 5-10 years since ID has sold themselves out and will most likely never make another good title again.

I completely agree with you on this! After playing id software games since they have been making them, I will probably continue to support them until they fold; regardless of how negative my opinion may be of the direction QL is heading(mostly what you said about it). Though my father paid for (and introduced me to the awesomeness of death match fps in general) my doom 1, doom 2, quake , quake 2, and quake 3 cd's; I have since then paid for the other titles.

I think rage is the first ID game I haven't been involved in a purchase towards due to my lack of interest towards it in general and the reviews I saw. I would love nothing more than quake 5 but I honestly don't think we'll ever see the day of its release. I'll probably continue paying for a pro account until QL folds ONLY because of my enjoyment in playing the quake series, and the fact it's not a significant amount of money. I don't really wish to support the way this game has been developed, or the amount of effort/level of caring id software has shown towards QL. But my general enjoyment I get from my couple hours of quake a week is enough for me to pay the nominal fee.

I feel like if the game is going to be continued to be developed in the fashion it is, we may only have a couple years left until the QL service folds. I'll glady go back to Q3 or w/e else deathmatch game fancies my interest at that time, but I'm sure I'll be sad to see that day come.

1. Anticheat = something ID doesn't even need. Since they ban guys from gameplay left and right even without one. The real problem is they make new accounts and easily evade the bans.

2. Built in voice chat = get ventrilo. which is now FREE... ventrilo the best voice chat program that you can have....You use to have to pay at least 8 bucks a month for a servers....thats right.....IS NOW FREE. and nothing is gonna be better then vent. no bandwith usage.....and it sounds clear as shit...with every option and sound controls u can think of.

3. Free Maps an d Modes = go premium? Unless you are talking about user community created content...which i'm all for...., which i think id underestimates the potential of that. 1000s would pay them to be able to make maps...and just watch someone play on them once! hahaha..
but then again that also means GO PREMIUM ( i for one don't care about new maps in a ranked match!@)

and now for pro features. Meaning PRIVATE SERVER features....be specific......

and if your talking about on pubs.....I take issue with voting DURING GAME. I'm def against that. ESPECIALLY IN A RANKED MATCH!!!! if you wanna kick somebody too bad. You f3'd wait till after the match. If you think hes a bot go demo him and get him banned.

I mean imo.....you should only be able to vote for any god dam thing on a private server. NOT in a public ranked match.

in a pub nothing should be able to be manipulated. nothing...not even a map vote or team size...this is to keep everyone honest and in the same field. I know this would never happen....i'm just saying.... ID is the admin on a pub noone else......cliquish elitist members should not have any control over the majority...except on their OWN SERVER.......

froobs are doing a service to paying members just by adding to the measly playerbase....and they are still potential paying customers.....

HELLO GUYS WE HEARD THAT YOU LOVED QLRANKS SO MUCH THAT WE DECIDED TO COMPLETELY IGNORE THAT ASPECT OF THE GAME AND INSTEAD WE ADDED 5 NEW USELESS GAMETYPES BECAUSE WE KNOW HOW MUCH YOU ALL LOVED AND PLAYED FREEZETAG. SINCERELY, QL DEV TEAM.

its called profiles. Id can make a better ladder then qlranks.com easier...but there is a reason they don't. ALTS! Fake accounts that dominate qlranks.com

qlranks is garbage compared to the stat system and skill rating system id has..which is the future. and made by hedge fund geniuses...and believe me...noone from qlranks.com is edward thorp my dude.

Mr. Michael C. Palmer is the Chairman and Lead Investor at GaimTheory, Inc. Mr. Palmer is a successful serial entrepreneur and active angel investor, with Public and private company BOD experience. He is a Former member California State Gambling Commission and Former CFO Hollywood Park Casino CPA with Masters in Taxation USC. IF ql ranks think they are fucking with this dude, they are crazy. He made our skill rating system and its the future. ID needs to put more faith into it.

if u don't bet on pro sports....and are not a mathematical genius....you dont' have any business talking on the subject!

what i want to see is a tournament league built into quakelive.

not a crappier stat system then they already have....hahah.

first of all and elo ladder ranking individually for CA pubs is ridiculous.

qlranks is only for duels lets face it. and noone gives a crap about duels right now.

to make duels more popular you have to first seperate stats for gametypes and make public UNRANKED SERVERS for people to practice on.

I mean really maybe if qlranks.com.....held a tournament league for CA CLAN MATCHES.....they might make quake popular.

but right now its just a ladder ranking for cheaters and duelers.....thats doing nothing to help quake. I'm sorry to inform you. Thats why id themselves no longer rank players.....theres just too many fake accounts.

what we need is centralized public CA tournaments, built into quakelive. at least 4v4.... not the 1v1 and 2v2...some idiot from quakelive just emailed me on facebook.... hahahaha......at least 4v4 or 5v5. bam! This will promote clans, promote more subscriptions, and more fair play. and make quake more popular GUARANTEED.

I was never banned from gameplay...not even for "harassment" lmao at "harassment"....... Mr. cooncidentally i'm a ffa/ctf despicable slum lord who hangs out with known botters.......just a cooncidence...

and so what do you mean coming from me? coming from you seems to be alot worse... and I still see you posting.

you jump to conclusions and cant back up any of it, u said to me im like this dutra guy and i always post shit on esr? this is my third post.. lol

anyway banned for harassment on 2 occasions, u suddenly acted like a total clueless faggot that you always were and said i was surely banned for tier slumming (biggest bullshit ever).

i guess u dont know how to insult people - nor do you know how to really get into peoples minds to make them report you for abuse, cus ur just another tool from the land of mcdonalds and nascar, so simple minded its hard to decide if one should laugh or cry while witnessing ur naive nature.

go let off some steam off on mavis beacon like you once suggested, others would meet friends, have a wank - get laid or simply do whatever, but you suggest mavis beacon as stress relief :D

the real whiny sore losers....are the guys like yourself.....who have to slum on newbs and talk shit.

ya expose yourself more as a whiny little sore losing bitch.....whose such a sore loser.....you got banned for whining like a bitch. I never did.

now your such a whiny sore loser....you don't even play the game anymore. You go around looking for people try and get banned......like a bitter little bitch.

and I'm not naive enough to think.....that someone like you....who is such a whiny sore loser...he'd get himself BANNED........that stopped playing the game just to go and find other bots.....maybe to prove to yourself and convince your own mind......that the majority of players are bots...maybe to justify your own fakeness......I dunno.

but through and through your dog shit to this community. You don't promote fair play kiddo. You promote getting banned.

ID is the man at banning people...they don't even need an anticheat it seems. I mean guys like u just claim harassment....just because we don't have demos of you botting...doesn't mean you act like a dishonest unfair players and scare off even more potential customers and players from the ever shrinking playerbase.

in real life people can still cheat.....and there is no botting. quake is no diff...botting is only ONE way to cheat...even less detrimental to the playerbase then alts like you.

the real problem is guys like you can just make dozens of accounts and even use proxy servers to evade ip bans.

I can see why some will say this is one reason to go premium. but its not enough. especially when premium players are getting exposed and getting free passes everyday as well.

but if they were to actually add an:

1. autobalance for pubs to keep even team numbers.
2. improve shuffle so it cannot be sabatoged....maybe shuffle based on skill ratings.
3. bring back the 5th tier from beta and lock all tiers to prevent players from tiering up.

then i would subscribe to [premium servers to avoid most alts

also because of knowing for a fact that they will get more subsripitions automatically because of these changes... so there will def be chances for more people my lvl on premium.

your name is banned dude....wtf fantasy land does your brain live in? you have to alt just to play this game...by your own admission you already have 4 alts banned haha.....thats pretty lowdown. ID didn't need a demo or a cheat program to ban you....

my point is you can have an anticheat all you want. doesn't mean crap when players can just make an alt and evade a ban. Id doesn't have any trouble picking out dishonorable players and banning them without any anti cheat. Or any PUBLIC anticheat that we know about lmao....

the core problem is people like you can make another account and go back to abusive behavior evading a ban.

your name is banned dude....wtf fantasy land does your brain live in? you have to alt just to play this game...by your own admission you already have 4 alts banned haha.....thats pretty lowdown. ID didn't need a demo or a cheat program to ban you....

ive never tried to hide my original identity on any of the accounts i used, so that's not really "alting/aliasing". i wouldnt even have so many accounts if they didnt ban them for quote: "repeated trolling" on their forums in the first place. obviously they didnt need a demo or an anticheat, because my ingame behavior had nothing to do with what they considered overly offensive / trolling on their forums.

i dont know what your deal is labeling everyone whos ever been banned from ql as a cheater when that clearly is not the case, but i guess that just shows your lack of experience. anyways, everyone's case is different, and needs to be handled as such.

in fact your worse then a bot.....because you get your kicks slumming in ctf and ffa and shit talking a bunch of newbs till they quit the game. Thats a real punk mentality......and it would be naive for someone to think you never botted.....with that type of loser mentality. You sink even lower dude.

your despicable.

faking your skill matching.... to play with newbs....to pretend your good .....is as fake as you can get. Claiming you don't have any other servers to join........was a lie in beta....and even with this measly playerbase ITS STILL A LIE!

at least a bot with one account with be skill matched with people his/her lvl.

but you? your worse for this community then being just a bot dude.....

and just like syncerror only wants testers from november 2010, I think for a reason, I feel everyone in t3 and t4 with an account made after that is suspect as well.

and thats from EXPERIENCE! tell us again how u got 4 accounts banned for harassment.

when some quake insiders consider me notorious with harassment and i'm not banned.

In fact i'm on probation on this website and your not.... And i guarantee you i can get pretty nasty in-game too.

but i'm not banned cause i'm a competitve player. And treat the game with respect.

You expect people to believe.....thats its a cooncidence a loser like you, ,,, who loved to slum FFA and CTF and only talk shit to guys 40 skills below his level.....was banned for harassment?

because you get your kicks slumming in ctf and ffa and shit talking a bunch of newbs till they quit the game.

no i dont. ive rarely played ffa or pub ctf unless there were no other games lol. everyone knows i mainly played in ctf/ictf pickups and occasionally ca pubs. but go ahead and continue making baseless assumptions about me even though youve probably never played in a game with me before

Overall, it seems that id software is artificially limiting the growth of QL community and their strategy is to maximize profit from existing playerbase without spending too much extra money on game maintenance. That's a sad thing, but still not the worst scenario possible.

a couple of things would actually change a lot of stuff in ql, but they all have their downsides:

- take away already free stuff (limited gaming time, disable console, disable some cvars, maps, game modes), this might drop activity even more tho, but it might spark premium play
- add valuable stuff (AC, a great matchmaking/lobby/pickup functionality instead of a server browser): might lead to more subscriptions if it was premium server only, might lead to more premium content played, pub play might be in danger tho (more cheating there), no more regular pub play in case of abandoning the non-lobby servers (which would just as big of a change as the release of ql in 2010)
- develop for the paying members (as it is now, keeps it steady, not all content is good enough for everyone, long time players will slowly decline due to several reasons nonetheless - how about new server locations for some regions then, that would increase payments at near infinite rate in some countries)

we don't know shit in relation to ql's actual goal nowadays, who knows if they just develop to some idealistic goal like preparing for a new release of q5 or whatever, or to sell the site infrastructure to licensees, in which case the community won't have much say anyway

I'm personally happy with QL since 2009, so I don't care about changelogs that much anyway till AC is finally coming 8D, but there's some missed chances in regard to worldwide popularity of quake, nobody can deny that

also it seems people/players aren't that proactive in average compared to q3 times, look at the 80% duels on ztn or whatever number of games on space ctf or CA pub in total 8D

Funny how many of you don't have the slightest clue about the development of a decent anti cheat tool. Yeah a simple one doesn't require that much resources and the costs (time/money) are sustainable but I bet 10 bucks that 1 month after the release half of you will flood esr with Q.Q the new ac is shit mimimi TT.
I personally am fine with getting rid of pub hacks and don't care much about whether my opponent uses wh in a pub duel and tries to hide it as much as possible. I don't even get these players because there's literally no gain :O.

Most of you want a proper working ac keeping league games clean but trust me none of the current id guys working at ql will be able to create on imo. I doubt they have the experience in anti cheat coding and soon after the release players will be able to keep on hacking as they please.

Ask esl how much they spend into anti cheat coding. Wire was a success but aequitas pretty much failed.

Solution: Get wire, eac support and add a simple ac on pub servers. Can't think of anything else which will work.

I doubt there's enough interest in ql that a cheat coder would spend time to work for a undetectable cheat.

On pro/prem

I'm a bit pissed because with prem I can neither vote pql on prem servers nor can I apparently play the new game modes. What is that bullshit? I don't want to spawn servers but at least lemme vote pql on prem servers because now the abo is totally worthless ...
There are literally no pql servers :(

Get rid of prem, keep pro, make every game mode for free and add special features to pro accounts like server spawn, customable tl blabla. but won't happen anyway.

I doubt there's enough interest in ql that a cheat coder would spend time to work for a undetectable cheat.

it doesnt necessarily have to consistently be updated at all. whats needed is that surprise factor to scare baddies off from even thinking about trying cheats in the first place. right now people are hacking their balls off because theres no serious repercussions if you get caught, and theres no chance that youll get caught if youre not blatant.

ID just needs to drop an anticheat during the next update without telling anyone a word and just let the people cheating be exposed to everyone. that alone will reduce the level of cheating going on in this game.

whats also needed is an alias buster or some form of database which keeps tabs on players aliases but thats another task altogether. an anticheat that works half decently is better than no anticheat at all. for what its worth, i'd take PB over no anticheat anyday.

Get rid of prem, keep pro, make every game mode for free and add special features to pro accounts like server spawn, customable tl blabla. but won't happen anyway.

I personally am fine with getting rid of pub hacks and don't care much about whether my opponent uses wh in a pub duel and tries to hide it as much as possible.

Assuming that you don't care about being cheated on (which most people by nature do), that those people turn their hacks off when playing official matches and that the acceptance of public hacking wont lead to further spreading of hacks - assuming that, your approach sounds reasonable.

I've heard some stories about false positives, but beside of that irc exploit I highly doubt the validity of most of them. Extreme resource consumption might happen on some configurations, I don't know. But if your pc is too weak to run PB it might have troubles with ESL Wire etc too.

well PB required you to have several processes running in the background to constantly scan the memory for any hacks in order for it to run correctly, which caused a noticeable in-game stutter even on high-end machines. if wire works the similarly then yeah thatd be the same case. but all in all, its still a small price to pay for a cleaner / less paranoid game imo.

Never had problems with stutter/lags in any punkbuster supported game, but maybe I just have been lucky so far.
Anyway, id dropped punkbuster support without an official statement or explanation so we can only speculate about the reasons. Though I'm sure most competitive players would pay a few $ or € each month to get an anti-cheat with regular updates.

PB wasnt the best anticheat but it did keep people from aliasing with its GUID system. a proper anticheat which has a built in GUID system which keeps tabs on a player's aliases like PB did would effectively address that issue.

Alts became an epidemic when ID stopped letting people tier down in CA.

Exactly at that moment did alts become an epidemic.

PB could do NOTHING to stop it. So your theory is false i'm sorry.

what pb did that was good...was give customers some satisfaction and confidence in id publicly showing they care and are trying.

PB would scare some potential newb hackers from ever trying to hack. Like an adt or beware of dog sign in a window.

One thing i did notice.....was not an increase in hacking or alts after the removal of pb.

but a WARP epidemic. thats right .....with the removal of PB we saw a warper epidemic.... most of them are now banned though......and the few rare legit players have fixed their connections..... so thats not a big issue anymore.

But like i say.....95% of the players have been banned already....and I'd say most of them were banned without pb.

either ID has their own secret auto anti cheat methods....or its just not needed.

all you guys crying for anti cheats, but still condone alts.......are suspect!

I highly doubt that to be honest, would like to see a source for that number. There were some complains/support requests regarding punkbuster at the quake live forums but if 1/3 really couldn't play I would expect them to spam the forums a lot more than that handful of people did. We never had official numbers on playercount but afaik it was at least a five-digit number.

The new gametypes seem to be a good idea since most of them are noobfriendly, which QL really needs (the closest is ffa, but its still requires picking up items and ca where a noob have to wait long minutes after every death), but if these are pro only features thats just another massive failure on IDs part.
At least make Domination free to play as it looks like a mode where there is constant gameplay and players having the weapons by default. Give a chance to get involved for those who came across the Quake series after 2004... cmon ID its not that hard, one time!

a gametype will never get big if you have to constantly invite your friends in for a game in order for them to play it. small CA and freezetag along with certain CTF maps arent played nearly as often as they could have been primarly because of this annoyance. these new gametypes will fail within a week lol.

im sure most people gave up on QL a while ago. the only people still stuck on it are the ones that are choosing to live in denial and ignore the obvious: this game never had much of a future for casual or competitive play, not without the community able to back it up like they were able to with q3 anyways.

just adding some simple anti-cheat, to get at least rid of the free cheats would eliminate already 95% of the cheating problem of today.
One year ago i never met a cheater on the servers ever, and now every day(hi kazan and KKK u sad pricks)

Client decide if you hit or not and then sends that data to the server . This means that if you hit the enemy on your screen you always hit no matter what (no rail troughs and lg mess). The overall feeling is excellent and has some lanlike qualities.

Issues arise at corner battle(at higher ping) since enemies can sometimes hit you on their screen even if you are behind cover on yours.

Sniping in Bf3 on extreme high ping servers (> 300 ping) is special form of trolling....

I don't think so. The client must send the server where the shot was aimed then the server looks if there was someone in the trajectory or not. With an unlagged code, you look a little bit further in your game states to see if someone happened to be there before.

what about a program that takes screenshots randomly and uploads to a server immidiatly? wouldnt that be the easiest way? (for competitions etc.)
i thought cs had/has something like that and from what i hear it caught quite a few cheaters..

People that whine about bringing back some sort basic anti cheat needs to realise punkbuster sucked HARD:

a) If you believe you get occasional fps drops now, prepare to cry with punkbuster on.

b) Punkbuster had issues with some setups so that you got kicked for random system issues. In Q3 i had to do all sorts of shit to get punkbuster to work. Putting punkbuster dll's in system32, run as admin, run at higher privs etc etc.

c) People had cheats that worked anyway, so everyone that was legit was dealing cheaters AND fps drops, issues etc etc.

obviously PB wasnt without its issues and annoyances, but atleast it stopped people from using public hacks that are easily obtained (ie:qlhook/whitelight).

with punkbuster, you'd have to work a bit harder to bypass detection and cheat @ the game than without it. PB was good at blocking public hacks, so in order to cheat, you would have either had to have the money to pay for the hacks, or you would have to know how to code your own hack yourself.

i dont say your wrong but keep in mind, i only know 2 guys at id whos working on engines. epic has a big stuff to do engines, its a business model for them. i like very much the java telephone engines and ios engines from id.

so to summarize this update:
1. they decided to turn domination into another iteration of crappy, boring, mind-numbing and linear clan arena
2. to add salt to the wound they added another one of david wright's abominations of quake - red rover, and capture strike which is just a hopelessly dumbed-down version of ctf
3. more segregation of the almost non-existent subscriber base. hell they can't even get many people to subscribe at all, now they want to punish premium players for not going pro.
4. some good stuff like harvester and 2 good maps, but they're completely ruined by the failed subscription model anyway

if that focus update is anything to go by then it's still going to fail. gg id software...